BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics

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Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
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Home  | Searching and navigating on bjs.gov
Searching and navigating on bjs.gov

BJS has added new features to make it easier to find information on our website.  Please review the options below for more details.

Search features

BJS best matches

BJS best matches, also known as KeyMatches, give you more accurate results. If you see a highlighted “BJS best match” at the top of your results page, this will bring you to the most important, timely content.

Related queries

You may see the words, “You could also try,” which will suggest alternate search words or phrases for better, more comprehensive results.

Other search tips

  • Use the drop-down menus in the banner and search results page to narrow your search down to just the results you are looking for―publications and products, topics, data collections and surveys, solicitations, dynamic data analysis tools or frequently asked questions.

  • By default, Google brings the most relevant results to the top of the page. Click on the “Sort by date” link in the upper right corner of the results page to re-order the results by date (starting with the most recent results).

Finding data

Data and Product Finder

BJS created a data and product finder to give you a more direct path to data and products. You can search by keyword or sort the listings by topic, publication series, data collection and release year.

Raw or micro data

  • BJS stores the full data sets, surveys and codebooks for many of our collections at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. These original sets of raw or micro data may contain more variables than the aggregated data BJS analyzes in reports, statistical tables, online tools and spreadsheets.  

  • You can also find many of our complete sets of raw data at justice.gov/data.

Demographics and state and local crime estimates

BJS combines some variables from the original raw data to create aggregate data that we analyze in reports, data tables, and online tools. Although most BJS reports analyze national estimates, you can access our data analysis tools to find state and local crime estimates, as well as demographic characteristics of victims, prisoners, arrestees and offenders.

The following data analysis tools are available:

Developer tools

Timeframe to release data

BJS collects data from both administrative records and interviews. After collection, BJS must clean, weight (in the case of sample populations,) analyze, and fully verify the data prior to release.

Below is an average data collection and processing timetable:

  • Data collection
    		•    5-6 months (from reference date) for administrative surveys; 8-12 for interview surveys
  • Cleaning/weighting   
    		•    1-2 months for administrative surveys; 3-6 for interview surveys
  • Analysis/verification
    		•    2-12 months, depending on survey type and complexity of analysis
  • Preparation to disseminate
    		•    2-3 months
         
    We are continually improving our data preparation and releases processes to make our data and products available as quick as possible.

    Navigating topics, data collections, and product listings

    • The navigation across the top of our home page will lead you to a drop-down menu of content by topic. You can also search by publication or product, view our data collections, find funding information or link to our data analysis tools.
    • Products that were previously grouped in multiple categories have now been grouped together to make it easier to see all the latest releases in one view.
    • The Navigating the BJS website page gives you step-by-step instructions to use the topic and content type navigation menus.

    What’s next

    BJS is redesigning the BJS.gov website to make it easier for our customers to find and understand our data and products. This overhaul will include improved search tools, a comprehensive online data catalog and interactive data visualization tools. We'll keep you posted. If you have any comments or ideas to share, please send them to AskBJS@usdoj.gov.



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